If that's a true market rate, fine. But I suspect its very hard to get into those sorts of jobs due to the sheer number of applicants. Meaning that the compensation is way too high and the public may not getting good value for money.

Long shifts are a convenience to the firefighters themselves, and shouldn't be held out as a downside of the job. Shorter shifts could be arranged if desired. Many of them, in my experience, work second jobs or even run businesses, so the long shifts merely give them more days off.

Yeah, it's not like those firefighters are going off into places that are literally burning trying to stop a house fire from enveloping an entire street. It's not like those firefighters are putting their own lives on the line. It's not like those firefighters are helping to save other people's (and animals) lives too.

I'm going to jump in against the circle jerk going on here, but firefighters are becoming less and less necessary in the numbers they're being hired. Construction techniques have improved, materials these days are less prone to fire, and firefighters are underworked and overpaid all over North America.

They fulfill an important role, but in recent decades there has been a greatly reduced need for them. A huge part of what they are nowadays is just a make-work program for white guys (and they're nearly all white guys, despite the classes being filled in proportion to local demographics). Their hiring follows the same trends as construction workers, where all sorts of people want to do it, apply to do it, and pay to learn to do it, but only one subset really gets hired. Paying that much for someone to sit around one particular area in the hopes something will happen is pure union pork.

Pros: Get paid very to work out and sleep on the job, amazing pension, and high prestige.

Cons: Potentially put yourself in mortal danger. Also, harder to do as you get older.

To use the RFD vocabulary is a pretty hot deal... as long as you don't die.

I'm not sure what to say about the fires vs firefighters except that I immediately distrust anything from the Fraser Institute. They are a right-wing mouthpiece that is paid to actively mislead the public.